Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

or

Comment: This item shows signs of wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact , but may have aesthetic issues such as small tears, bends, scratches, and scuffs. Spine may also show signs of wear. Pages may include some notes and highlighting. May include "From the library of" labels. Satisfaction Guaranteed.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and Amazon Prime.

Ariel Dorfman's explosively provocative, award-winning drama is set in a country that has only recently returned to democracy. Gerardo Escobar has just been chosen to head the commission that will investigate the crimes of the old regime when his car breaks down and he is picked up by the humane doctor Roberto Miranda. But in the voice of this good Samaritan, Gerardo's wife, Paulina Salas, thinks she recognizes another man—the one who raped and tortured her as she lay blindfolded in a military detention center years before.

Special offers and product promotions

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This powerful political drama and psychological thriller by the noted Chilean writer premiered in London last summer, where it won the Time Out Award for Best Play. In March it opened in the United States on Broadway, with direction by Mike Nichols and starring Glenn Close, Richard Dreyfuss, and Gene Hackman. The play focuses on a woman who finds herself in the position to exact revenge upon a man whom she believes to have been her torturer 15 years earlier. In telling this story, the author also addresses the dilemmas which touch all our lives: innocence and evil, truth and lies, forgiveness, and revenge. This is a worthwhile addition to modern drama collections.- Howard E. Miller, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Missouri Lib., St. LouisCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the Audible Audio Edition edition.

A book on the complex nature of justice and reconciliation. I loved the way the author portrays the intricate relationship between victim, victimizer and judge. A modern state parable of how harmony and peace bring into a country by burying the contentious issues of torture and atrocities against the opposite groups.

I bought this for my English class. Didn't really understand it very well at first, but as a few different assignments where devoted to it, I grasped it bit by bit. Quite thought provoking to say the least.

Written by Chilean author Ariel Dorfman and first performed in 1990, DEATH AND THE MAIDEN is a play in three acts that requires one woman, two men, and a set that depicts a living room and terrace but which later transforms into an abstract concert hall. The play also requires the use of handgun, which must be fired on stage, and while it does not include special effects it makes significant demands on sound and light design.

The story concerns Gerardo Escobar and his wife Paulina, who live in a Latin American country that is never specified but is likely Chile. Several years ago the country underwent a military coup. Gerardo and Paulina worked against the military, and Paulina was captured and viciously tortured. Now the nation has begun to return to normalcy, and Gerardo has been appointed to a commission that will investigate military abuses. Paulina, however, suffers from horrific post-traumatic stress disorder, and is not sure she can face the public life that Gerardo’s appointment will force upon her.

By chance, Gerardo meets Dr. Miranda, who is impressed with Gerardo’s appointment. Gerardo, who believes Paulina to be asleep, invites Dr. Miranda to spend the night and places him in the guest room. But Paulina is awake, and when the light go out she attacks Dr. Miranda and ties him to a chair, where Gerardo is shocked to find him in the morning. The doctor, she declares, is the man who oversaw her torture: although she never saw him, she has recognized him by his voice. She demands Gerardo help her interrogate Dr. Miranda, and swears that when the truth is known she will let Dr. Miranda go. But will she?

DEATH AND THE MAIDEN skillfully balances out characters and plot. Is Paulina insane? Is Dr. Miranda innocent? Or is she correct, and Dr. Miranda a monster that she now has in her grasp? Will she let him go if he confesses? Will she kill him if he does not?

As the drama plays out, Dorfman repeatedly strikes ambivalent notes. It is impossible to know in any factual sense what the truth is, and as backgrounds are exposed even Gerardo is revealed as less than entirely truthful. The play offers no easy answers and it ends on a strange and somewhat sour note without offering any resolution. This is a strong play, indeed. Recommended.

I recently re-read this play after watching the DVD (which, though very good, does not do the book justice IMO). Upon my second reading, I re-discovered what had made this book so appealing to me in the first place: Dorfman does not let the Reader have any easy answers. Throughout the course of the play, the Reader grapples with questions of power, of justice, of redemption, of truth. Each individual Reader must determine for him/herself the answers to the questions which Dorfman's characters posit. It's precisely this ambiguity and involvement of the Reader that make this little book a masterpiece, a work of literature which one won't soon forget.